


For What It's Worth

by aelangreenleaf



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 04:42:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelangreenleaf/pseuds/aelangreenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three meetings, two people, one place. The girl and the boy, together and apart. Nothing lasts forever, but at least she remembers when it felt like eternity, when the days were soft, the nights of dark and their love, forever. Lily/James AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	For What It's Worth

**Author's Note:**

> This is an older story (first published 2006). I have to say, if I am permitted to have a favourite among my own works, that this is probably it. It's been re-edited from the original version.

"Were you at the game yesterday?

The question hangs in the cool and light autumn air, and she watches carefully as an aubergine leaf tumbles down from the branches above. Looking up, she spots the old house in the distance, the house where the walls screamed and moaned and murmured, but only ever on the full moon. She sits down, finding a spot among the fallen leaves.

She pauses for a moment, before answering. "Maybe. Why does it matter? You're going to tell me about it anyways."

He shrugs; he knows she's right. He folds down beside her, and draws his knees inwards. "No use being coy, Evans; I know you were there. Did you see me signalling to you?" His eyes twinkle as he looks over at her, full of that boyish enthusiasm that somehow always comes off as charm.

She rolls her eyes, but inside she knows that this cocky air, this pompous bragging is an act; all part of the game that they play with each other. "You mean that Wonky Faint thing? Sadly, no; I was reading my book."

"Wronski Feint, Lily!" he exclaims, exasperated. "It's a Wronski feint, darling." He shakes his head in amused disapproval, knowing that Quidditch has never been one of her interests. And yet she always comes to his games. 

"Whatever. Wonky, Wronski, it doesn't matter. It's just a bunch of silly boys riding sticks and chasing balls," she continues, still playing her part.

James looks over to her, staring at her intently. "What about Amelia, and Elizabeth? Aren't they part of the team too?"

She lifts her gaze to meet his, and her eyes are twinkling just like his, mischief reflected back at him. "Ah, yes, but those two are athletes," she replies, her eyes focused on his. "They're playing Quidditch, not just fooling around and showing off like a bunch of little boys."

Their gazes stay locked and the look becomes one long stare. An autumn breeze stirs around them, and suddenly, James grins madly and releases the handfuls of dead foliage he had been collecting in his hands, throwing them up into the circulating air. Lily screams in shock at his sudden movement as the leaves plunge down suicidily, spearing themselves down into her hair and onto her clothes.

"Potter!" she cries out in feigned anger, and she tackles him, pinning him to the ground and stuffing leaves down his shirt, giggling all the while.

Playing in the leaves, as the wind joins in, blowing about them, they forget for the moment all the things that they can never forget. The threat of war is ever present; this is the last Hogsmeade visit for the year before the school is locked down. These are their last real moments of ignorant bliss, the last time they have as innocent souls, spent among the autumn leaves; lovers in the final remains of summer.

James helps her pull the kamikaze foliage out of her hair as they stand once more, both lost in their own thoughts. The sun is low on the horizon; night will follow too swiftly, in more ways than one. The girl grabs the boy's hand as they make their way out of the old forest, looking one final time to the abadonned shack in the distance, wondering and waiting. The sky would be complete tonight, as the moon filled in. They had to return before the dark.

"James?" she begins, as they leave the trees behind.

"Yeah, Lily?"

She sighs. "For what it's worth, I  _was_  watching."

And in the dusk, she sees him smile.

* * *

Night was everywhere, between the trees and on the path. The stars were strangely muted, as if the heavens themselves were in mourning, their light dim and cold in the cosmos above. She shivers, involuntary, and clutches his hand all the tighter.

"Lily..." he whispers, quiet but firm.

"No," she responds emphatically, even more resilient. "You can't." But the words were futile before spoken, because she knows, and has known, that there is no other  option, no choice. He has to go.

He grins a wry but sad smile. "Trust me, love, I don't really want to." He straightens, and stands a little taller. "Dumbledore says there's no other way."

"Send another," she pleads, undaunted. She has to make him understand. "Make someone else go. The Order can find someone else."

He looks over, knowing in his heart that she herself has already accepted the inevitable. "Lily..." whispering once more.

Looking away, into the shadow, her tears fall into the pool of black on the dirt below. "What about Harry?" she says, almost not speaking at all.

His heart lurches at the mention of their son, his breath catching in his chest. "Don't," he whispers, his voice gruff and raw.

"James..."

He turns to face her, his eyes blazing, full of hurt and terror and fear. "I'm doing this for him, for you, for _everyone_. Bloody hell, Lily, why can't you see that? I don't want to do this; I don't want to fight You-Know-Who!" His voice trails off into the dead night, heavy now, so heavy. "I don't want to die."

"You won't," she replies, and her voice is firm, confident. She knows he won't. He can't. 

The grin turns despondent, almost. "You can't promise that, love," he murmurs, and the words break her heart.

Suddenly, she's in his arms, and he's holding her to him, tight and undying and eternal. The old trees whisper around them, of a forgotten autumn afternoon when they played among the maroon and yellow leaves, young lovers in the twilight of summer. Time stops then, and it's suddenly every moment they've ever had all at once, and it's here, and it's them, and it's everything.

A red light appears in the sky, past the sombre, disintegrating house in the distance. "I have to go," he tells her, his lips brushing the edges of her ear.

She reluctantly lets him out of her embrace, her fingers lingering on his arm, her skin pressed against his. "I love you, James."

He backs up, only a little, only to prepare for what is to come. "I love you too, Lily." He picks up the tin can on the ground, dirty and ignored by those passing by. The seconds take forever.

"For what it's worth, Lily," he begins, and he can feel the tin can warming between his hands, "You should know that I only ever played for you."

And as he disappears, she can feel the tears glide down her skin, as cold and as dark as the night around her.

* * *

The summer morning is bright and warm; the light filters down throught the brilliant emerald leaves as the sun begins its ascent upwards into the sky. The air is cool around her, though the day is quickly growing humid, the signs of a warm day to come. The girl, who is no longer a girl but a woman, studies the crumbling ruins of the old, 'haunted' house. A memory rises, unbidden, into the forefront of her thoughts, but she pushes it away and tries to think of something - anything -  that will not make her cry.

She sits down onto the fresh, young grass, gently saving a ladybug from what would have been certain death. She can't delude herself into trying to push her memories away; this place, this one spot among the ancient trees and the falling leaves, was a place forever frozen in her mind. Tumbling on the ground, laughing, holding hands. Crying as he left, arguing, pretending that everything was going to be alright. Both of them knowing that it wasn't.

Lily misses him everyday. She misses the way he would mess up his hair, though annoying to no end. She misses the gleam in his eyes while he was planning something truly mischevious. His kiss, his laugh, his touch, the way he smiled when he picked Harry up, his subconscious fidgeting whenever he'd been sitting in one place for too long...

And amid the grass, and the escaping ladybug, Lily feels the tears tug at her eyes as they fall gently to the ground.

There is a call in the distance, a faint, dying horn blow coming from the almost invisible castle in the distance. The Quidditch game will be starting soon, and she had promised Harry that she would be there. After all, it was the final game of the year, and she wouldn't miss her son playing in his last Hogwarts game.

Brushing the dead grass off from the back of her pants, Lily Potter stands, and with one last backward glance, leaves the grove of trees and the flowing breeze that holds so much of her past. Behind her, the newly vacated patch of grass is still damp with salty tears.

And as she leaves, the eternal wind catches her whisper, her voice an echo reverberating through time.

"For what it's worth, I only ever loved you."


End file.
